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From: ace@sund.cc.ic.ac.uk (Andriko del Saludo)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: uuencode vs. xxencode
Message-ID: <1990Jul18.102554.22808@cc.ic.ac.uk>
Date: 18 Jul 90 10:25:54 GMT
References: <9007171240.AA00322@thep.lu.se>
Sender: news@cc.ic.ac.uk (USENET News System)
Reply-To: ace@cc.ic.ac.uk (Andreas C. Enotiadis)
Organization: Imperial College Computer Center, London, UK
Lines: 21

In article <9007171240.AA00322@thep.lu.se> magnus@THEP.LU.SE (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>What's the difference between uuencode and xxencode, and which encoding
>scheme is the "best" for mailing binaries (i.e. which one produces the smallest
>output files?)
>
 Actually both programs use the same scheme and generate the same size.
 xxencode, however uses a more limited character set. This is GOOD!!
 because uuencoded files can occasionally be corrupted. The situation is
 that if a uue file hits an IBM mainframe on BITNET then caret (^) is
 translated into tilde (~) because of the ASCII to EBDIC to ASCII
 translation. xxencode does not suffer from this and, therefore, to me
 is superior. However most people are stuck with uuencode and therefore
 one has to use it. Tough....

 ace


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- Andreas C. Enotiadis (ace@cc.ic.ac.uk, ace@grathun1.earn, etc)    -
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